{"id":17061,"date":"2018-03-14T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/?p=17061"},"modified":"2018-03-12T10:40:24","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T10:40:24","slug":"where-are-the-female-first-and-last-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2018\/03\/14\/where-are-the-female-first-and-last-authors\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the female first and last authors?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women remain under-represented in many areas of science, but they are especially scarce in the pages of high-impact journals, according to an analysis published online 2 March in bioRxiv<\/a>.<\/h4>\n

\"scales\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle gathered names of first and last authors from papers published from 2005-2017 in 15 major science and neuroscience journals, including Nature<\/em>, Science, PNAS, Nature Neuroscience<\/em> and Neuropsychology Review<\/em>. Nearly 10% of the names were excluded because they were relatively gender neutral, but the rest told a clear story: In these journals, authorship is a male-dominated enterprise.<\/p>\n

For example, women accounted for roughly 25% of all first authors in Nature <\/em>and Science<\/em> and just over 35% of first authors in PNAS<\/em>. Female first authors outnumbered men in only one journal, Neuropsychology Review<\/em>, but just barely (53% vs 47%). Women made up an even smaller proportion of senior (or last) author spots, ranging from about 15% in Nature<\/em> and Science<\/em> to just under 40% in Neuropsychology Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The study found an inverse relationship between the prevalence of female authors and the impact factor of the journal\u2014the higher the impact, the lower the chances that a woman was involved. Because publication in high-impact journals is so crucial for a scientific career, any gender gap could have serious consequences, says Ione Fine, a neuroscientist and co-author of the study. \u201cIf you aren\u2019t published in high-impact journals, you don\u2019t get awards or jobs,\u201d she says. \u201cIt becomes a cascade of events.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scarcity of women in journals doesn\u2019t simply reflect a lack of women doing high-quality science, Fine says. The study notes that roughly 30% of prestigious R01 grants from the US National Institutes of Health go to women. But in almost all of the journals studied, the percentage of women in senior author spots falls below that mark, a sign that the gender disparity in authorship exceeds disparities in other measures of academic excellence and productivity. \u201cThat\u2019s the smoking gun that we have a real problem here,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Subtle biases by reviewers may make it harder for women to get published, Fine says. But she notes that women themselves may be contributing to the gender gap through a reluctance to submit to top-tier journals. \u201cMy feeling is that women are self-censoring because it\u2019s just a more brutal process for them,\u201d she says. \u201cI know my male colleagues submit papers that I wouldn\u2019t submit, and they seem to do just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fine and colleagues call for all journals to keep statistics on papers submitted by women and minorities. They also suggest that journals could greatly reduce the possibility of bias by adopting mandatory double-blind reviews, a system in which the reviewer doesn\u2019t know the identity\u2014or the gender\u2014of the study\u2019s authors. Nature<\/em> and other journals provide double-blind reviews on request, but Fine says that practice won\u2019t protect women from bias. If an author requests double-blind review, she says, the reviewer is likely to assume that the request came from a female researcher, thus defeating the purpose.<\/p>\n

In response, Nature Research, the parent organisation of Nature,<\/em> issued a statement that read, in part: \u201cNature Research is committed to gender equality and our journals strive to support women in science.\u201d The company says that it does not ask submitters to indicate gender, so it doesn\u2019t systematically track gender statistics. It also says that it will \u201ccontinue to assess the merits\u201d of mandatory and voluntary double-blind reviews.<\/p>\n

A 2017 Nature<\/em> editorial<\/a> noted that the journal has made slow progress in other areas of gender equality. For example, women accounted for just over 20% of reviewers in 2015, a small improvement over previous years. In 2013, 13% of reviewers were women. But Fine says that hiring more female reviewers won\u2019t necessarily close the publication gap. \u201cWomen can be biased too,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chris Woolston is a freelance writer in Billings, Montana.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suggested reading<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Women in physical sciences<\/a><\/p>\n

Fight the brain drain<\/a><\/p>\n

Science is failing women<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle gathered names of first and last authors from papers published from 2005-2017 in 15 major science and neuroscience journals, including Nature, Science, PNAS, Nature Neuroscience and Neuropsychology Review. Nearly 10% of the names were excluded because they were relatively gender neutral, but the rest told a clear story: In these journals, authorship is a male-dominated enterprise.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88283,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,186,254,865,302,195,204,359,199,201,20],"tags":[2709535,10538371,2709519,161,163,6348619,2929727,10538369,2709525,10538367,1509,10538373,277,441,116,18,304],"class_list":["post-17061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia-2","category-communication-2","category-cv","category-data","category-diversity-2","category-faculty-2","category-funding-2","category-publishing-2","category-research-2","category-tenure-2","category-us","tag-authorship","tag-double-blind-review","tag-first-author","tag-funding","tag-gender","tag-gender-bias","tag-grant","tag-high-impact-journal","tag-journal","tag-last-author","tag-manuscript","tag-manuscript-editor","tag-peer-review","tag-publication","tag-publishing","tag-tenure","tag-women-in-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}